Best Wealth Management Companies

Let’s have a quick quiz:

A higher “assets under management” number signals a superior level of wealth management services (True or False?)

A fee-only structure and a fee-based structure are similar (True or False?)

Risk tolerance is the most important aspect of wealth management (True or False?)

Hint: You can find the answers to these questions in this article as well as in this downloadable guide on choosing the best financial advisor for investors with $10 million or more in investible assets.

If you are a high net worth or an ultra-high net worth individual, making informed decisions regarding your wealth is of huge significance. Because the stakes are high and the decisions can have far-reaching impacts on multiple areas of your life, wealth management is something you may have considered. Luckily, in the US, there are many wealth management companies spread across the country.

However, you want to work with the best wealth management companies because you know how hard you had to work to create your wealth. You want to protect and grow that wealth and secure the financial future for yourself and your family. It is what we, here at Pillar Wealth Management, do for individuals with $5 million to $500 million in liquid assets.

If you haven’t thought about wealth management, then this article will answer the question “what is wealth management companies?” If you have read about wealth management, you may have also learned that wealth managers charge a fee. But, if you are asking yourself “wealth management companies is it worth?” or you cannot seem to figure out whether you should be paying someone to manage your wealth, then this article will clarify that for you as well. The information below will shed some light on when it makes sense to hire a wealth management firm.

If you feel convinced about the positive role that a wealth manager can play in your life, then you probably want to know only one thing – how to hire wealth management companies? We will help you out with that as well. And lastly, since we are in the mood to give out knowledge and helpful tips, we might as well also discuss why you should work with best Pillar Wealth Management. Oh, and don’t worry about your quiz score.What counts arethe decisionsthat you take after reading this article. Let’s get started!

Top 6 Wealth Management Firms — What You Should Know

Here’s what you should know about some of the top wealth management firms worldwide.

1. Bank of America

In 2009, Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch. Its Global Wealth and Investment Management division (GWIM) holds $1.6 trillion in AUM, with Merrill Lynch contributing $1.3 trillion. The bank has more than 200,000 employees.

Bank of America’s wealth management is offered through Bank of America Private Bank and Merrill Lynch (a registered broker-dealer). Merrill advisors build personalized investment portfolios that reflect their clients’ financial goals and circumstances. The advisor can provide lifestyle planning, tax consulting, investment management, trusts and estates management, strategic philanthropy, and banking.

2. Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley began in 1935 on Wall Street. In 1997, the Morgan Stanley Group merged with Dean Witter, forming the world’s largest securities firm.

Morgan Stanley offers various investment options, including the E*TRADE digital platform, online advisors, or dedicated financial advisors that create customized financial plans.

At Morgan Stanley, a LifeView Personal Wealth Advisor creates a strategy to meet your financial goals. A LifeView Plan can cost up to $10,000 for clients with plan assets valued at over $5 million.

3. UBS

UBS, a Swiss company, operates in 40 countries with more than 23,000 employees. It has four divisions — Global Wealth Management, Personal & Corporate Banking, Asset Management, and Investment Bank.

UBS Wealth Way is a program that provides financial advice to wealthy individuals and families worldwide, transforming their aspirations into a strategy. The Wealth Way process begins with acquiring a comprehensive understanding of your goals, the people who matter to you, and your hopes and aspirations.

With this information, your UBS financial advisor develops a financial plan around three strategies — liquidity, longevity, and legacy, centered on you. 

4. Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo has its headquarters in San Francisco; the bank operates in 35 countries with 8,000 branches and over 70 million customers. It is considered one of the Big Four Banks in the US.

Wells Fargo Advisors is the third-largest brokerage firm in the US, having $1.1 trillion in assets under management in 2010.

Wells Fargo Private Bank offers customized, personalized wealth solutions, advice, and planning through its LifeSync program (so your life is in sync with your values and goals).

5. Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs, founded in 1869, has its headquarters in New York City. It provides wealth management, asset management, and banking services to individuals, businesses, corporations, and institutions. The firm has over 40,000 employees worldwide.

Goldman Sachs began managing pension funds in 1988; it managed Microsoft’s IPO, which generated $61 million, and it now has a real estate division.

A Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management financial advisor creates a customized portfolio and provides trust and estate planning for the client. The company offers lines of credit, philanthropic education, and lending.

6. Vanguard Group

The Vanguard Group is based in Malvern, PA. It was founded in 1975 by John Vogle. Today, the firm has over $8 trillion in assets under management.

The Vanguard Group is owned by its clients.

Vanguard offers its Personal Advisor Wealth Management services for individuals with over $5 million in investable assets. Clients have at their disposal a dedicated CFP, a team of financial experts, and a relationship manager. Advisory fees are 0.30% or less depending on the value of the assets in the investment account.

What are wealth management companies?

If you are new to wealth management or simply want to learn more about how wealth management works, then is it important for you to know the answer to the question “what is wealth management companies?” Wealth management companies are businesses that comprise of wealth managers who specialize in managing financial issues of high net worth or ultra-high net worth individuals.Pillar Wealth Management, for example, is a wealth management firm with 60+ years of combined experience in managing portfolios worth $5 million to $500 million.

A high net worth individual is someone who has $1 million to $30 million in liquid investible assets. Those individuals who have more than $30 million in liquid assets are considered to be ultra-high net worth. When we say liquid assets, we mean assets that can be readily invested. They do not include the value of the home that you live in.

As you can imagine, high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals have issues that are different from those of an individual with $100,000 in liquid assets. Selling a $10 million property is very different from selling a $300,000 home. Short-term and long-term capital gains taxes make a huge difference to a portfolio worth a few million dollars. Philanthropy requires planning as giving away is considered to be more difficult than making money. Figuring out how to give away $200,000 is very different from figuring out how to give away $20 million. Planning the transfer of a multi-million dollar business to the next generation requires thought and execution. Deloitte estimates that a staggering $58 trillion of wealthis expected to shift from baby boomers to millennials over the next few decades.

The list goes on and on. But, you probably get the idea that high net worth portfolios have a range of financial topics at play. They have to be thought about simultaneously before making any decision. That is where wealth management companies come in. You can read more about the array of topics that wealth management companies have to deal with in this bookThe Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Best Financial Advisor: For Investors With $5 Million to $500 Million in Liquid Assets.

The best wealth management companies are the ones that always place their clients at the center of everything they do. White-glove services mean having a human being on the phone whenever the client calls. They mean recognizing the client by name. White-glove also means providing the client the time right away to listen to whatever issue they want to discuss. Feel free to schedule your free consultation with Pillar Wealth Management to discuss any financial issues or wealth management topics that you need help with.

Wealth management is also a customized and personalized process. It requires understanding each individual’s goals, motivations, lifestyles, and financial situations. One cannot apply a “standard” process to wealth management. Therefore the best wealth management companies are the ones that can create a customized plan for each client and then constantly monitor how that portfolio is progressing towards the client’s financial goals.After all, wealth management isn’t a plan-and-forget service.

Wealth management companies is it worth?

Wealth management companies charge a fee in return for the wide array of services that they offer. These fees are generally either a fixed percentage of the total assets that a client brings in, they can be milestone-based, or they can be based on a pre-determined hourly rate. Some wealth managers earn commissions as well. The first model of a fixed percentage of the assets under management is called a fee-only model. There are no commissions in this model. The fixed percentage may drop as the size of the assets brought in by the client increases.

The commission-based model is considered as a fee-based model. It basically means that there may be fees in the form of hourly rates or milestones, but there may also be commissions. Alternatively, there could be no fee but just commissions. The problem with this model is that the wealth manager is driven by the willingness to earn a commission and may, therefore, push certain investment products to his/her client. This may not be a good idea if the client doesn’t really need the product. You can read more about the merits and demerits of each model in this guide on choosing the best financial advisor for investors with $5 million to $500 million in investible assets.

Since one has to pay for the services of thebest wealth management companies, one logical question that can come to anybody’s mind is “Wealth management companies is it worth?” The cost for any activity can be worth it when the benefit derived from that activity is far greater.

Consider this, if you have a portfolio of $10 million and you end up paying 5% extra tax because of too much portfolio churn or if you end up paying 1% more in costs, then that is substantial money. 5% of $10 million is $500,000 and 1% of $10 million is $100,000. If a wealth manager charges you 1% of your investible assets (i.e. $10 million) and saves you unnecessary taxes as well as investment costs, then the fee is well worth the money. And guess what, the wealth manager would have also advised you on a few other things also like estate planning, retirement planning, and real estate.

Now let us look at another example. Let us assume that you had $200,000 in investible assets. At 1%, you would be paying $2,000 in fees every year. Out of the $200,000 you might invest $100,000 in mutual funds or passive index funds with low expense ratios. You can probably do that yourself as there isn’t much to lose. Additionally, you perhaps do not own a $10 million property that you want to sell and need professional advice on. In such cases, you may be better off working with a financial planner or advisor who can help you with the accounting, the taxes, and a retirement plan.

Wealth management makes sense for high net worth clients who have diverse needs. It works well with those individuals who need help structuring decisions that simultaneouslytake into account the sale of a business, the investment of the resulting windfall while minimizing taxes, and planning the purchase of an estate in Florida for retirement. You can reach out to Hutch Ashoo for a free consultation on whether wealth management makes sense for your needs.

How to hire wealth management companies?

If you are a high net worth or ultra-high net worth individual, then you may already be looking for the best wealth management companies that you can find. Regardless of whether you are new to wealth management or have already spoken to a few wealth managers, one question must have surely come to your mind – How to hire wealth management companies?

You can begin by speaking to your relatives and other family members. You can ask them if they work with any wealth manager. The people whom you know are also more likely to give you genuine reviews about their experience of working with wealth managers. You can also ask your friends and work colleagues about promising wealth managers in your city/district.

Another simple way of shortlisting wealth managers is to search online. You can search by location, to begin with. Once you find interesting wealth management companies, read their blogs and websites to understand their services and their philosophy of wealth management. If you find any articles written in the mainstream media by specific wealth managers, then those are also pretty useful. You can also start a conversation with Pillar Wealth Management to explore if their services are a good fit for you.

Once you shortlist a few promising names, try to schedule a meeting with the wealth manager. Thanks to technology, you can now schedule a video call from the comfort of your living room. During the call, ask the wealth manager about their background, how they got into the profession, why they like managing high net worth wealth, and how they work. As pointed out in this book on improving portfolio performance for investors with $5 million to $500 million in liquid assets, ask the wealth manager questions about investment costs.

The idea of meeting one-on-one is to explore whether you can trust the wealth manager and develop a working-relationship. After all, trust is paramount if a person is to be entrusted to manage your hard-earned wealth.

Work with the best; Pillar Wealth Management

While you explore the topic of wealth management and whether it makes sense for you, we believe that you should consider the option to work with the best; Pillar Wealth Management.As a fee-only wealth manager, Pillar Wealth Management earns no commissions. It is a registered fiduciary as well. Both of these things mean that Pillar Wealth Management offers advice that is always in the best interests of the client.

One of the qualities of the best wealth management companies is personalization and attention to the client. With only 17 new clients being accepted this year, Pillar Wealth Management focuses more on quality rather than quantity. The firm isn’t about boasting the highest number of clients and the most assets under management. Many of the big firms have those sorts of business models thatdo not allow them to customize and personalize their services. Just give Hutch Ashoo a call and ask him about Pillar Wealth Management’s processes.

Pillar Wealth Management also understands that clients cannot be bucketed into vague categories like high-risk tolerance, medium-risk tolerance, and low-risk tolerance. Every individual is unique and every wealth management plan is unique.

Hutch Ashoo and Christopher Snyder are the expert founders of independent, fee-only, and fiduciary wealth management firm Pillar Wealth Management. If you would like to speak with them or simply ask any questions about how custom and trusted wealth management advice is offered to highnet worth individuals with $5 million to $500 million in investible assets, then feel free to start a conversation.

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